


This Sorrowful Life

by sartiebodyshots



Category: Falling Skies
Genre: Episode: s02e02 Shall We Gather at the River, Gen, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3461024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sartiebodyshots/pseuds/sartiebodyshots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The discussion from 2x02 that Tom has with Ben on hate, from Tom's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Sorrowful Life

“Dad.”  There’s a soft, comforting hand on his shoulder, but Tom can’t help jumping awake.  He doesn’t remember what he was just dreaming about, but it hadn’t been pleasant.

“Nightmares?” It’s Ben. 

“Yeah,” Tom says softly.

Ben nods understandingly.  “Yeah, I had a lot of those after Anne took my harness off.”

It doesn’t surprise Tom.  Not only had Ben been traumatized beyond what any kid should have to go through, he always had nightmares when he was a little kid.  It also doesn’t surprise him that he hadn’t noticed; Ben has always been a notoriously still sleeper.  It used to terrify him and Rebecca both.  There’s nothing quite like walking in on your child and thinking he’s not breathing.  They only knew he had nightmares because he’d crawl into bed with them some nights.

“How'd you shake them?” 

“I stopped sleeping,” Ben says grimly. 

Tom hums to himself.  That doesn’t seem like a great plan for either of them.  Although, from the sounds of it, Ben can handle a lot more than he used to be able to.  It’s unsettling; Ben’s his little boy, who should be hiding from the rest of the family with his nose in a book, not hiding in the woods with a rifle.

“Just came back from across the river,” Ben says, and it’s clear that he’s gotten to the meat of what he wanted to say.  He grabs the stool so he can sit down.  “Heard what happened.”

Tom tries to smile reassuringly at him.  “Oh, it's for the best. Until we know more, until I can figure out what it is that did to –“

Ben reaches up and touches his face.  He’s being careful to not hurt Tom, but there’s an almost scary intensity to his gaze.  It’s like being pinned down.  Tom wonders if he can sense something else in him, but he doesn’t want to ask. 

“Want to know my secret? To make sure they can't control me?” Ben asks.

“Mm-hmm,” Tom says.  He has the experience, after all.

“Hate,” Ben says with a bitter clarity that makes Tom’s heart drop.  It’s clear this is something that has been stewing in Ben for a while. “I hate what they did to me with all my heart and soul. I hate that they turned me into a freak.”

“You're not a freak,” Tom says with as much sharpness as he can manage.  He can’t believe any of what his son is saying.

Ben looks grumpily at him and gets up.  Tom watches warily as he closes all the curtains before turning his back to Tom.  For a brief second, Tom isn’t entirely sure that he wants to see whatever Ben is about to show him.

Then, Ben pulls his shirt up and it’s worse than Tom can imagine.  There’s not just a little tough skin anymore.  It looks like a battlefield.  Before there was the delusion that maybe the spikes would get better on their own- sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, right?  But now he sees just how delusional that was.

While Tom had already known that he had gone onto that spaceship for naught, looking at his son’s back drives home painfully just how much he gave up.  He could have been there for Ben, could have helped made it easier, somehow.  Instead he had been chasing false hopes and doing god knows what else.

Tom wishes he wasn’t restrained.  He has the unbearable need to hug Ben tight.  There is so much that has changed since he left, and it’s too much.

“You got to hold on to your hate, Dad,” Ben says after a long silence.  He pauses again and puts his shirt back on.  “If you can do that- if you can do that, it doesn't matter what they've done to you they won't be able to change you inside.”

Where did his sweet little boy go?  How did hatred become his ideology?

Of course, it’s hardly unfamiliar to Tom.  He remembers being filled with hate like that.  When he had just gotten out of high school- and away from his father for the first time- he had been consumed with hate.  Hate for his father, hate for all the things his father had done to him, hate for himself for letting it happen and never fighting back.  Hate for the scars that he carried with him no matter how far away he got.  It had been the only thing he had felt for a while.

The hatred had tainted all of his undergrad experience, had tainted so many things after that too, even though he had managed to claw himself out of that hole.  Hate is horrid and ugly and even though Ben has every right to be hateful, Tom doesn’t want that kind of dark and dingy existence for any of his sons.  All of his sons deserve to learn from his mistakes.

“You're right. Hate is a very powerful emotion. And I hate them, too,” Tom says and then sighs.  How can he explain this without giving away too much?  He’s worked so hard to keep all hints of his abuse from his sons.  They can never know.  “But if all you've got left is hate, then they've already changed you.  It wasn't my hate that kept me going the last couple of months.  It was my love for you and for Hal and for Matt.”

“Got to go,” Ben says, getting up and leaving.

Tom sighs and watches him go.  He hopes that he’s gotten through to Ben, at least a little bit.  It’s a dangerous path that Ben is walking, and the stakes are so much higher now than when Tom had been walking it.


End file.
